Stranger on a Strange Island
by Cke1st
Summary: Two of the most famous dragon-riders in history meet... and they'd better learn to work together, or they'll face a double calamity. This story starts in the middle of "The White Dragon," when Jaxom and Ruth were returning Ramoth's stolen queen egg. Most of the action takes place in Berk, between the first and second movies. The story is rated K-plus; the language is all K.
1. Chapter 1

**Stranger on a Strange Island **Chapter 1

_A/N  
Two of the most famous dragon-riders in history meet... and they'd better learn to work together, or they'll face a double calamity. This story starts in the middle of "The White Dragon," when Jaxom and Ruth were returning Ramoth's stolen queen egg. Most of the action takes place in Berk, between the first and second movies. The story is rated K-plus; the language is all K._

**o**

The sky above the Keroon plain was clear, hot, and too quiet. Jaxom glanced around and saw the danger, the silver mist of descending Thread raining down across the desert. He scrambled to the queen egg, Ruth right beside him, both digging it free, pushing it into the sling, frantically trying to judge the leading edge of Fall.

As fast as they worked to secure the precious burden to Ruth for flight, they were not quite quick enough. The leading edge of Threadfall fell hissing to the sand around them as Jaxom vaulted to Ruth's neck. "Up!" was all he could exclaim. Ruth belched out a stream of flame as he took off, trying to clear a path in front of himself so he could go _between_.

A ribbon of fiery pain sliced Jaxom's cheek, his right shoulder, his forearm, his thigh. He felt, rather than heard, Ruth's bellow of pain as they went _between_. Jaxom had never been Threadscored before; he felt his dragon's pain as though it was his own; and the shock and the agony broke his concentration. He lost the mental picture of their destination. Without it, Ruth's jump across time and space was unguided.

The flight _between_ should have ended by now. On and on it went. They should have emerged in Benden Weyr's hatching ground, to restore the stolen egg and prevent a civil war. But he'd failed! Ramoth's egg would never be returned; Benden would go to war against the Oldtimers; and he and Ruth would never emerge into the sunlight again. The cold blackness was closing in on him. "We're lost forever," he tried to think at Ruth.

_We are not lost,_ the dragon replied. _I simply do not know where we are going_. Jaxom remembered nothing after that.

**o**

"I can't believe you two!" Hiccup burst out. "You actually collided in mid-air, trying to catch that stupid black sheep! Did you both forget that this is just a game?"

"A game has to have a winner," Astrid shot back, "and it was _not_ going to be _him!"_

"It wasn't going to be you, either!" Snotlout retorted. "No Jorgenson has _ever_ lost to a girl, and I wasn't going to start today!"

"Then maybe you aren't really a Jorgenson," she said archly. Snotlout didn't like the implications of that. The two of them were about to come to blows.

"Actually, you both lost, because neither of you finished the race," Hiccup cut in, trying to keep this accident from degrading into war. "Your dragons lost, too! In case you didn't notice, they both wrenched their wings when you flew them into each other. Now, neither of them can fly for days, which means you're both grounded. Was it worth it, just to win a lousy dragon race?"

"It was worth it to keep _her_ from winning," Snotlout said hotly.

"Then it was all for nothing," Hiccup informed him. "She was so far ahead, she didn't even need that black sheep to win. I think Fishlegs caught it after you two crash-landed. That put him in second place, three points behind Astrid, but he finished and she didn't, so he's the winner. Snotlout, you're tied with the twins for last place."

"She would have won anyway?" Snotlout visibly wilted.

"Hey, you can't stop the best, even if you knock us out of the sky," she smirked.

"Aww, man!" Snotlout fussed. "You should have told me the score before I ordered, 'Ramming speed!' I got my dragon all banged up for nothing!"

"And you!" Hiccup continued, turning to face Astrid. "Have you forgotten, Snoggletog is coming, and that means the great migration is almost here? Your dragon needs to fly away in a few days and lay her eggs! Now she can't fly! What are you going to do?"

Astrid looked stricken. "I hadn't thought of that," she admitted, then glared at Snotlout. "You should have told me what day it was, before I ordered, 'Ramming speed!' I don't know what Stormfly is going to do now."

"I know what you two need to do," Hiccup decided. "Now that you both know that you did something totally stupid, you need to shake hands and make up." Astrid and Snotlout folded their arms and glared at each other. "Fine, make fists and make up excuses instead," Hiccup shrugged. "You've got at least a week to be grounded, stuck in the village, so you can't get away from each other. If you _have_ to pummel each other senseless to convince yourselves that you're right and the other one is wrong, just leave your dragons out of it. Please?" He was almost begging.

After a moment, Astrid airily said, "I wouldn't _dream_ of letting Stormfly get any of _Snotlout's_ dirt on her!"

"Yeah, like she said, only the other way around!" Snotlout snapped.

"Great! You're starting to think alike already," Hiccup nodded. "It could be a stressful Snoggletog this year, with both of you in each other's faces all day, but I –"

"Hiccup!" Fishlegs was running toward them as fast as his stubby legs could move him. "We've got a problem!"

"Four problems, actually," Hiccup said matter-of-factly. "Two injured dragons, and two riders who are probably going to go Berserker on each other, the first chance they get."

"Then make it five problems," Fishlegs said as he skidded to a halt next to them. "There's a strange dragon lying on the beach! With a strange rider!"

"What are they doing?" Hiccup asked, his problems with Astrid and Snotlout instantly forgotten.

"Either they're sleeping, or they're out cold, or..." Fishlegs didn't finish. "I was taking a victory lap around the island – you know, kind of rewarding Meatlug for us winning a Dragon Race for the first time ever – when I saw them. I didn't stop to check them out; we came straight back here to tell you. They've got some kind of big bundle with them, too."

"Show me!" Hiccup ordered as he ran for where Toothless was napping. Astrid turned to run for Stormfly... and stopped as she realized that Stormfly wasn't going anywhere.

"Astrid, you can ride with me if you want to," Hiccup said over his shoulder. "I may need all the help I can get."

"I want to!" she decided, and ran after him.

"Hey! What about me?" Snotlout called.

"You can ride with Fishlegs," Hiccup called.

"Ride with Fishlegs? Forget it," Snotlout said sullenly, and slouched away to check on Hookfang.

As Toothless and Meatlug took off, Hiccup said, "Fishlegs, tell us about this dragon."

"I never saw anything like it," the big youth answered. "It's a little bigger than Toothless, I think; it has four legs and two wings, and it's black!"

"Another Night Fury?" Hiccup's heart soared.

"No, I don't think so," Fishlegs corrected him. "It has a forked tail, it doesn't have any tail fins, it has little knobs on its head, and its head isn't shaped like any of our dragons. It doesn't look dangerous or anything. Well, not any more dangerous than any other dragon."

"What about the rider?" Astrid called.

"I never saw him before, either," Fishlegs admitted. "His clothes don't look like Viking clothes, and his helmet doesn't have any horns on it."

Hiccup relaxed slightly. Aside from the Vikings of Berk, the only other person he knew who had ridden a dragon was Heather, and Fishlegs had definitely said that the mystery rider was a "he." They weren't any closer to answers, but at least he wouldn't have to deal with the complications that always followed Heather like rain followed stormclouds.

It wasn't easy to spot the dragon from a distance; its dingy black color made it blend in with the stones on the beach. It was lying on its side, curled around some kind of large bundle. The unknown rider lay a short distance away. "They haven't moved from when I first saw them," Fishlegs noted, which seemed superfluous because both dragon and rider were clearly unconscious.

"I wonder what happened to them," Hiccup wondered as Toothless landed near the unknown pair. He watched his dragon's reaction carefully. The Night Fury had a sensitive nose and a very good sense of which dragons could mean trouble. If this pair was dodging the penalty for some crime they'd committed, or had been banished because of some kind of sickness, Toothless would notice something amiss long before the humans picked up on it.

The black dragon waited for Hiccup to dismount, then padded over to sniff the strange dragon. Then he sniffed the rider. He looked over his shoulder at Hiccup, clearly puzzled by something.

"He doesn't know what to make of them," Hiccup explained to Fishlegs and Astrid, "but he doesn't sense any danger." He walked over to join Toothless. "They've both got some odd-looking wounds, like they were raked by a red-hot sword or something. I'm sure Gothi can fix those. But there's something strange about that dragon. I can't put my finger on it."

"I don't recognize it from the Book of Dragons," Fishlegs nodded, "but with all the new places we're visiting, I'm getting used to unknown dragons. It looks like a great big Terrible Terror, except for the forked tail and the shape of the head. Its scales must be really small; they're hard to see."

_"That's_ what is different about this dragon!" Hiccup burst out. "It doesn't even have any scales! It has hide, kind of like a pig, except much darker, and it doesn't have bristles."

"And it smells a lot better," Fishlegs nodded. "I've never seen a dragon like that before, anywhere." He reached out to touch its flank.

The moment he made contact, the dragon stirred. Fishlegs leaped straight backwards with a cry as the dragon tried to stand, then returned to being curled up around its burden. Its eyes opened, and that was the really alarming part. Its eyes didn't have whites and pupils; they were multifaceted, whirling, and colored yellow. It turned its head to focus on the nearest human, which was Hiccup, now that Fishlegs had jumped away.

_Help my rider!_

Hiccup put his hands to his head. He could have sworn he heard someone else's voice inside his head! "Fishlegs, did you hear something?"

"Aside from the surf and my heart pounding in terror? No."

_Please help my rider!_

The dragon was staring at him. Hiccup was trying to sort out this confusion on the fly.

"Did you say something to me?"

Fishlegs replied, "I said, aside from the surf and my –"

"No, not you, Fishlegs! I mean the dragon!"

"Umm, Hiccup, dragons can't talk, and that one hasn't made a sound."

"He's talking to me in my head! He said, 'Please help my rider.' "

Astrid shook her head. "Hiccup, if you're hearing voices in your head, that is _not_ a good sign."

Hiccup turned away from both of them to face the dragon. "How can I help your rider?" he asked it.

_He is lost, frightened, injured, and he needs to be fed until he recovers._

"What about you? I can see that you're hurt, too. Are you all right?"

_I am hurt, but I will recover. I must not move. I must keep this egg warm._

"A dragon egg! So _that's_ what you're protecting! Well, it's your good luck that you landed in a place where people like dragons. We'll do whatever we can for you. And your rider. And your egg, too. That is one big egg!" He turned to Fishlegs. "You and Meatlug need to fly back to the village. Get Snotlout and – oh, for the love of Thor! Hookfang is injured, so he and Snotlout can't fly! We need some serious dragon muscle to bring this pair back to the village, and Snotlout picked a bad day to knock his own dragon out of the sky."

"And mine," Astrid added tartly.

"How about Gustav and Fanghook?" Fishlegs suggested.

Hiccup sighed. "Every time that pair gets involved, things go badly. But we don't have much choice. Sure, get that pair and send them here, with a sail from the shipyard. They can use that to carry this dragon back to town. Also, tell Gothi that she's going to have an unusual patient, and warn Gobber to make a little room near the forge for a dragon egg that needs to be kept warm."

"Got it!" Fishlegs said over his shoulder as he ran for Meatlug.

Astrid looked concerned. "Hiccup, are you _sure_ you're hearing that dragon's voice in your head? I don't hear anything."

"Astrid, I know what I heard. It's like thinking to yourself, only it's someone else's voice."

She looked away in dismay. He was finally losing it.

He faced the dragon. "What do you mean, your rider is lost?"

_We spent too much time between, and he lost touch with himself._

"Too much time between? Between what and what?"

_Between. Just between._

"This isn't helping. Can you tell me where you're from?"

_We are from Ruatha Hold. We must return this egg to the Benden Weyr hatching ground, quickly. Jaxom says Lessa will send the northern dragons to war against the South if anything happens to that egg._

"Okay, that means absolutely nothing to me," Hiccup admitted. "I don't know where Ruatha or Benden are, I don't know what a Hold is, I don't have a clue what a weyr is, and I've never heard of Jaxom or Lessa. Can you help me out here?"

The dragon's eyes were shading from yellow to blue. It looked confused. _Everyone knows those places, and who those people are. That is, everyone on Pern knows. Where am I?_

"You're in Berk," Hiccup started to explain. "It's an island in the Barbaric Archipelago, out in the North Sea. It's the home of the Hairy Hooligan tribe of the Vikings. My father, Stoick the Vast, is chief of the tribe."

_Those names mean nothing to me,_ the dragon admitted. _I think we have traveled a very long way from home._

"It sounds that way," Hiccup nodded. "We don't have any dragons around here that look like you."

_I am the only one of my kind. There is no other dragon like me, who can do what I do._

"And what can you do?" Hiccup asked. He was always curious about dragons.

_I can maneuver in the air better than any other dragon, I can talk to the fire lizards, and I always know exactly when I am_. The dragon paused. _Oh, my. We have traveled a great distance in time as well as in space. I have no point of reference for this time._

"Today is Thorsday, if that helps," Hiccup said. "What's a fire lizard? Do you mean a Terrible Terror?"

"I sure wish I could hear the other half of this alleged conversation," Astrid complained. For lack of anything else to do, she was checking the unconscious rider for signs of broken bones or other injuries. He seemed all right; he was stirring, and moaning as if in a distant agony.

Toothless suddenly grunted and looked out to sea. A small flock of Terrible Terrors was closing in on them. "Speak of the devils," Astrid growled.

"What do they want with us?" Hiccup asked Astrid. "Can't I work on one problem at a time?"

_These are not real fire lizards,_ the dragon's voice said, _but they still seem to like me._

The tiny dragons landed on the strange dragon – something that very few Berk dragons would ever tolerate – and began scratching at his hide. To Hiccup's surprise, the black skin began flaking off and dropping away in patches. Underneath, the dragon's skin was pure white. He picked up a patch; it crumbled under his touch.

"It's mud! It's covered in dried mud!" Astrid cried. "If that happened to Stormfly, she'd go out of her mind!"

"Why are you covered in mud?" Hiccup asked the dragon.

_Jaxom said I needed to be black so no one could see me at night._

"And who is this Jaxom you keep mentioning?"

_Jaxom is my rider._

"Okay, now we're getting somewhere! Astrid, the rider's name is Jaxom."

"So you say," she muttered.

"No, so the dragon says! Why won't you believe me?"

"Hiccup, dragons can't talk! And they sure can't talk into people's minds!"

Hiccup smiled. "They talked into our minds once, and we could talk back to them. Don't you remember?"

"Well... yeah," Astrid admitted, "but that wasn't normal, and neither is this!"

Hiccup turned back to the dragon. "Could you do me a huge favor and talk to Astrid's mind, the way you're talking to my mind?"

The dragon glanced at her. Astrid's face went blank; then she gasped and nearly tripped over her own feet. "The dragon _is_ talking to you!"

"Apology accepted," Hiccup shrugged. "Hey, look! Here comes Fishlegs! But where are Gustav and Fanghook?"

Meatlug landed next to them. Fishlegs slid off his dragon, looking confused. "A few minutes ago, this was a black dragon! Now it's white! Is it a color-changer, like a Hobblegrunt? And what's with all the Terrible Terrors sitting on him?"

"No, Fishlegs, it's a white dragon who was coated in mud so he'd look black. That was important to his rider for some reason. As for the Terrors, I have no idea. Now, why didn't you do the things I told you?"

"I did, Hiccup, I did! At least, I tried. But the sailmakers wouldn't give a sail to Gustav because he's just a kid who doesn't need any sails. He didn't think it made sense to come here without the sail, so he stayed in the village, waiting for something to change. Gothi says she's busy – she's treating half a dozen small children for the pox – but she can fit in an unusual patient if she really has to. And Gobber says 'no way' on the egg in the forge. He says, the last time we kept dragon eggs warm around here, they blew up half the village, and he's not going to let that happen in his workplace."

Hiccup's face darkened. "Do we always have to do things the hard way? Those sailmakers will move plenty fast if my father gets involved, and I know some ways to get him involved! As for the egg, we'll find some other way to keep it warm. Fishlegs, stay here with Astrid. If that rider wakes up, keep him comfortable. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"What do I do if the rider doesn't wake up?" Fishlegs asked.

Hiccup smiled. "Talk to the dragon. I think it'll be a conversation like you've never had before." He jumped into Toothless' saddle and they were airborne a moment later.

**o**

_A/N_  
_When Hiccup says the dragons talked into people's minds before, he is referring to events from another story of mine, called "Do You Mind?"_


	2. Chapter 2

**Stranger on a Strange Island **Chapter 2

When Stoick the Vast intervened in a tribal problem, he got results, and Hiccup had gotten his father involved in this one. How did he get the chief to step in? "Dad, we found an injured dragon rider from another tribe. We need to get him back to the village so we can find out who, besides us, is training dragons." In no time at all, Gustav and Fanghook had been loaned a brand-new sail by the sail makers, and the young dragon/rider pair were taking it to the beach, where an immobile dragon and a semi-conscious rider waited for a ride back to the village. Gothi promised to drop her case load and examine that rider as soon as he arrived. Gobber... well, Gobber held firm on his refusal to keep a dragon's egg warm in the forge. "Don't ye remember th' last Snoggletog, an' what Astrid did to us? As soon as that egg warms up, _blooey!_ No more forge!" he exclaimed. "I'm not wantin' that, Stoick."

"Does this egg have to be in the forge?" the big chief asked his son.

"No, it just has to be kept warm," Hiccup answered. "We could put it next to our own firepit; that would work just as well. I think. We're dealing with the unknown here."

"What if that egg goes 'blooey' in the middle of our house?" Stoick demanded.

"I kind of think it won't," Hiccup answered, trying to sound more confident than he felt. "This dragon is really different from every other dragon we've ever seen, and the egg is much bigger than the eggs we've seen. I don't think the usual rules about dragons and eggs apply to this one."

"What can you tell me about the rider?" Stoick wanted to know.

"Not much," his son admitted. "He seems to be on some kind of secret mission to prevent a war between two groups of dragon riders. There are places and people involved that I've never even heard of. He's definitely not from around here. All I know is, if he rides a dragon and he's trying to keep the peace, then I'm on his side."

"Be careful there, son," the chief advised him. "Jumping into someone else's war when you don't know the facts is a good way to wind up on the wrong side. What if the opposing sides in this war are both bad? If they fought each other, that would weaken them both, and that would be good for the rest of us. What if one side is good, and they want to punish the bad ones, and the bad ones really deserve it? Don't be so quick to choose sides before you know what those sides are."

"You're right," Hiccup nodded. "I'm not actually choosing a side today. I'm just trying to help a dragon and his rider. We'll sort out the implications once the rider is feeling better and he can talk to us."

"The rider can't talk yet?" Stoick burst out. "Then how do you know so much about him?"

"Well, uhh, the way it worked out was, the dragon talked to us."

Stoick bent down to look Hiccup in the eye. "A talking dragon? And you believed him?"

"Dad, when has a dragon ever lied to us? I know it's hard to believe, but this dragon can actually communicate with us."

"I'll believe that when I see it," the chief grumbled as he stood up again.

"You probably will, Dad. He sounds like he's as smart as any of us."

The chief shook his head. "With some of your friends, I could believe that part. Just try not to get too involved with strangers when they might impact our tribe's future. We'll help the man because he's a traveler in distress, but we _won't_ get pulled into his war until we know all the facts. Right?"

"Right, Dad," Hiccup sighed. "Oh, thanks for the help. Now I need to go supervise what's happening out on the beach, so they don't make a mess of things."

"That's my boy!" Stoick chortled. "This tribe will need a hands-on leader someday, and you're turning into that leader." _Very slowly,_ he added to himself as Hiccup ran back to find Toothless.

Back at the beach, Hiccup found Fishlegs engaged in an animated one-way conversation with the white dragon, while Gustav stood with his arms folded, obviously not believing that Fishlegs was hearing anything in reply. Astrid was helping the prone rider take a drink from her water skin; that rider was still very much out of it.

"Okay," Hiccup began. "Here's what needs to happen. We need to spread out the sail on the ground. Then we need to get the white dragon and the big egg onto the sail. Then Fanghook needs to pick up the sail by the corners and fly it back to Berk. Then we need to get the rider onto Meatlug's back and get _him_ back to Berk. Then I'll need help moving the egg into my dad's house, while we get medical help for the rider and figure out how to feed the dragon." He paused. "Did anyone hear a word I said?"

"He says his name is Ruth!" Fishlegs exclaimed rapturously.

"This guy is kind of handsome," Astrid said to no one in particular. "He's not my style, but Ruff might go for him."

Gustav scowled. "Tell me again why I'm wasting my time here."

Hiccup shook his head disgustedly. It took a few minutes to get everyone moving in the right direction. He took advantage of Gustav's desire to prove himself at every opportunity, and promised Fishlegs that he could talk to the dragon all he wanted, _after_ they got everyone off the beach. Ruth was willing to ride in the sail – he said he was still too dizzy to fly properly – but he was very careful to keep that huge egg close to himself, with his wings wrapped around it. Gustav and Fishlegs had to team up to sling Jaxom onto Meatlug's back. Then the three dragons – Toothless with Hiccup and Astrid, Meatlug with Fishlegs and Jaxom, and Fanghook with Gustav, Ruth, and a very big egg – made their way back to Berk.

Once there, Gothi took charge of the unconscious dragon rider, Fishlegs and Gobber moved the egg to Stoick's hearth under the chief's nervous supervision, and Hiccup tried to look after the white dragon who called himself Ruth. The good news was that he could actually talk to the dragon and find out what he wanted. The bad news was that most of the dragon's answers meant nothing to him, particularly when Hiccup asked him about food.

"Herdbeasts? Wherries? I have no idea what those things are," Hiccup admitted. "Most of the dragons around here eat fish. Can you eat fish?"

_They are not my first choice,_ the dragon said in his mind. _You have no herdbeasts at all?_

"Well, we have beasts that we keep in herds," Hiccup told him. "We call them yaks and sheep, and we use them for milk and wool, so we'd hate for you to eat them all. How many of these 'herdbeasts' do you eat?"

_Two herdbeasts and a wherry make a nice meal,_ the dragon replied. _I eat once every three days or so, so I do not require frequent feeding._

"Two yaks every three days?" Hiccup was dismayed. "We'll be yakked out in a month! My dad will never go along with that. We're going to try the 'fish' route and see what happens."

He walked to the nearest fish-feeding tray and grabbed a cod in one hand, and a good-sized flounder in the other. He presented them to Ruth, who eyed them doubtfully, then ate them in several bites.

"Did you like them?" Hiccup asked.

_I suppose they are very nutritious. I could eat them if there was nothing else to eat, but I would so like to eat a fat herdbeast! I am feeling very empty after that long jump between._

"Okay, never mind on the fish. Maybe you can poach some livestock from another tribe, once you get your strength back. We'll send you to a different tribe each time, so you don't eat too much from any one source."

_That is how we often do things in Ruatha. It keeps the Holders from complaining too loudly._

"I'm more worried about another tribe raiding us than about the Holders, whoever they are. Now, tell me more about this war that you're trying to prevent."

_The Southerners stole the queen egg from Ramoth's clutch. They need a queen to keep their Weyr vital. Lessa, who is Ramoth's rider, is extremely angry that her dragon's egg was taken. It is unthinkable that dragon could fight dragon, but she might order such a thing if the egg is not returned, or if it is harmed in any way._

"I'm trying to understand you, but we're going to work on one idea at a time. So... Ramoth is another dragon?"

_Yes, she is Benden's queen, and the largest dragon who has ever lived. She is kind-hearted, but very protective of her eggs._

"You've mentioned Benden before. What is Benden? Is it a tribe?"

From there, Hiccup pressed Ruth with question after question until he thought he understood what the dragon was trying to tell him. Ruth had many questions of his own, but he allowed Hiccup to appease his curiosity first; he was dependent on the goodwill of these people to provide food for him and to help Jaxom. To Hiccup, it was clear that Benden, Ruatha, and Southern were not anywhere near Berk, so their doings would not affect him or his tribe. Ruth said they were in another time as well, but Hiccup didn't dwell on that. His head was starting to hurt from the problems he _could_ comprehend.

The key issue, as well as he could understand it, was that the queen egg might hatch soon. As soon as it did, the new queen dragon would choose a human to pair off with for life, and if that didn't happen in Benden, to a person who had been approved by a gold rider or a bronze rider, Lessa would demand revenge against the ones who had stolen the egg. Her temper was legendary, and she wielded a great deal of power and influence. Her vengeance could tear Pern apart, wherever Pern was. So it was critical that Jaxom recover his wits and return the stolen egg with his dragon as quickly as possible.

In spite of his story, Ruth didn't seem to think there was any time pressure on them. That made no sense, but then, most of this situation made no sense. Hiccup was trying to piece together the big picture when he heard a roaring from the training ring nearby. It sounded like a dragon in pain.

He arrived to find Astrid trying to pacify Stormfly, who was breathing out fire in random directions and violently shaking her head. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I don't know!" Astrid exclaimed. "I heard her roaring, so I ran down here, and I found her like this! I can't settle her down. I've never seen her like this before!"

Hiccup looked all around. The only other thing in the training ring was a fish. It had dragon tooth-marks on it, so he picked it up. It smelled odd. He looked into its mouth and found that it had been stuffed with a reddish-brown powder. He sniffed it and sneezed violently, several times.

"Hot peppers!" he burst out. "So that's what set Stormfly off! There's enough spice in this fish to give a Red Death indigestion. It's a good thing she spat it out instead of swallowing it."

Astrid sent her dragon out to get a long drink, then glared at Hiccup. He instantly felt defensive, even though he hadn't done anything wrong.

"Who would give a spicy fish to a dragon, anyway?" he wondered.

"I know exactly who did it," she snarled, "and that half-brained jerk is going to _pay!"_ She stormed off in a rage.

"As if I didn't have enough troubles!" Hiccup said to no one. "First, I've got a mystery dragon and rider who are trying to stop a war. Now Astrid and Snotlout are _starting_ a war. What next? No, don't tell me. I don't want to know."

Back outside Hiccup's house, another dialog was taking place. Ruth had found it odd that he couldn't hear the voices of any of the dragons around him. So he spoke into the mind of the nearest one, the black one that Hiccup rode. He was honestly shocked at what he learned.

_How can you communicate with your rider if you do not speak the same language?_

"We understand each other," Toothless replied. He actually made his usual series of grunts and yowls, but because Pernese dragons understand thoughts and not specific words, the language barrier was as insignificant when talking to Toothless as it was when talking to Hiccup. "Sometimes we misunderstand, but that does not happen often. We seem to think alike in many ways. Perhaps that is what drew us to one another."

_So the two of you paired off when you hatched?_

"No, I had seen about fifteen circles of the sun when we met. I have reason to think he is about the same age as me."

_Then how did you pair off?_

"We were drawn together by fate. During the wars between the dragons and the humans, he –"

_The WHAT?!_

It took Toothless even longer to explain the tainted history of men and dragons to Ruth than it had taken Ruth to explain the situation on Pern to Hiccup. Hiccup could easily understand two factions on the brink of war, but Ruth could not conceive of dragons randomly flaming humans and stealing their food. Even the idea of flaming at will was strange to him.

_But if the humans did not provide you with firestone, then where did you get it?_

"I don't know what firestone is," Toothless admitted. "Do you mean the rocks that the Gronckles eat, so they can shoot molten rock balls?"

_No, I mean the special kind of rock that all dragons have to chew so they can breathe any fire at all._

"We don't need to do that. Aside from the Gronckles, we just make fire inside ourselves and shoot it out. Most dragons have limits on how often they can shoot before they have to stop and recharge their fires, but we don't have to chew on any rocks." He paused. "That is just as well. Some of us have very sharp teeth, and I hate to think how dull those teeth would become if we had to chew on rocks. Now, if you will, please tell me about this choosing of a human at the moment you hatch. It sounds interesting. How do the humans know where the hatching will take place, and when to arrive there?"

They were animatedly comparing dragon cultures when Hiccup returned from the training ring. "Oh, so you two are getting along? That's good news. It's about time _something_ went right around here." He checked on the great queen egg and rotated it so the heat from the firepit would warm it more evenly. Then he stepped out and listened to Toothless yowling and growling at Ruth. "Hey!" he burst out. "Ruth, can you tell me what Toothless is thinking? That would be amazing!"

_He thinks that the way you and he paired off was very lucky. and he is glad that he does not have to chew on rocks in order to produce flame._

"Yeah, okay, I guess he would think that. Uhh, why did that subject come up?"

_On Pern, dragons must chew firestone or they cannot produce flame. Only humans can dig the firestone out of the ground and break it into smaller pieces for us to chew._

"That must have been rough when you lived in the wild, without people."

_Dragons have never lived in the wild on Pern. We have always been partnered with people._

Hiccup looked wistful. "I could wish that that was the case here. We never would have had those wars, and a lot of people and a lot of dragons wouldn't have died. On the other –" He got no further before his thoughts were cut off by a horrible scream. He ran for the source of it, and found Snotlout outside his house, walking with a pronounced limp, apparently looking for whoever had caused the limp.

"Snotlout, did you hear that scream?"

"Hear that scream?" Snotlout repeated. "I _made_ that scream! You'd scream, too, if somebody put a Nadder spike inside the cushion of your favorite chair!" He gingerly patted his rump.

"A Nadder spike!? Snotlout, those things are poisonous! You need to see Gothi right away."

"There wasn't any poison on it," came Astrid's voice. She stepped around the corner, arms folded, looking calm but deadly in a way that reminded Ruth of Lessa. "It was an old spine; the poison leaked out and dried up months ago. It was just payback for what you did to my dragon, Snotlout."

"You want to talk to me about payback?" Snotlout demanded. "I'll give _you_ payback like you never –"

"No, you won't," Hiccup cut in. "You both got each other good, and now you're even. Let this end, right now."

"Never!" Snotlout raged. "The Jorgenson family honor has been dishonored, and so has my rear end! I will not rest until I've made her pay for this!"

"Then you aren't going to get any rest," Astrid warned him with a dangerous smile. "Anything you can do to me, I can do to you five times worse. I didn't start this fight, but I swear to you, I will finish it!"

"Guys, please, let it go!" Hiccup begged.

Snotlout scoffed, "Let it go? Let it go? I can't hold it back anymore! You are going to see the vengeance of Snotlout unleashed on the world like you've never seen it before! And, Hiccup, if you get in the way, you'll get a piece of it, too! Now get out of my way and let me do what I do best!"

"Sitting on Nadder spikes?" Astrid smirked.

"No, making you sorry you got out of bed in the morning," he warned her.

"Ooh, I'm really scared," she mock-shivered. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an injured dragon who's about to lay eggs. She deserves to get my attention; you don't." She contemptuously turned her back on him and strode away.

Snotlout turned to Hiccup. "Hiccup, I do not understand what you see in that girl. She's going to kill you someday!"

"She doesn't get mad at me like that, because I don't provoke her," Hiccup said offhandedly. "But I do think she's right about making you a lot sorrier than you can make her. Please, just forget the whole thing. That would be the smart thing to do."

"In that case, I will definitely _not_ forget the whole thing!" Snotlout proclaimed. He limped back into his house, muttering, "Now what would be the best way to pay her back for her payback?"

Hiccup shrugged. "I sure hope that mystery rider wakes up soon, so he can take his egg back where it belongs. One war at a time is plenty for me."


	3. Chapter 3

**Stranger on a Strange Island **Chapter 3

A day went by. Two days went by, three, four, and the mystery dragon-rider still showed no signs of regaining his senses. Hiccup and Fishlegs used the opportunity to get all the information they could get out of Ruth, who withheld nothing from them. They provided as many fish as the white dragon was willing to eat, and when Ruth made it clear that the fish were not making the grade, Hiccup made arrangements with his father to provide a yak instead. For all his precise speech and dainty manners, Ruth was a terribly messy eater. No one in the village had the stomach to watch him devour his kill, not even the hardened Viking warriors.

_That was not bad,_ he thought to Hiccup afterward, _but something was missing._

"Maybe it needed garlic?" Hiccup suggested.

_I do not have a name for it,_ Ruth said, _but there is a slight flavor that has been in every herdbeast and wherry I have ever eaten. It was not here._

"Well, next time you're hungry, we'll let you snatch something from the Outcasts' livestock pens," Hiccup promised. "Maybe you'll find what you're looking for there."

_What do you mean, "the next time I am hungry?"_ Ruth asked, puzzled. _I am still hungry now._

"You just ate a whole yak!" Hiccup burst out. "How can you still be hungry?"

_Normally, I am satisfied after I eat two herdbeasts and a wherry,_ the white dragon said plaintively. _This "yak" was quite a bit larger than our herdbeasts, so if I can get one more of those, I will not need a wherry._

"That's a good thing, because we don't have any wherries here." Hiccup noticed that the dragon's belly was slightly distended from the meal he'd just finished. "Is it important to stuff yourself?"

_When we got here after leaving our home, it was a very, very long flight between,_ Ruth explained. _I am empty now and I must not let myself get weak. I must have my strength or I may not make it when we return home._

"Okay, if that's how it has to be," Hiccup shrugged. "Toothless and I will guide you to the Outcasts' island, but we won't overfly it. There's a bit of a risk of getting shot at."

_Then why are you taking me there, and not someplace safer?_

"Tribal politics, Ruth. The Outcasts are always mad at us – in fact, they're always mad at everybody – so if you steal one of their yaks and eat it, it won't make anything worse for us. But if you take some livestock from one of the other tribes, and they think Berk is robbing them, then they could raid us in return. My dad has made it very clear that he doesn't want that to happen. I'll explain about the crossbows, but if you're in and out of there quickly, then... oh, wait. You probably can't carry off a yak to eat it elsewhere, can you?"

_I am sorry, but no, I am not strong enough for that. With something that big, I will have to eat it where I kill it._

Hiccup grunted. He really did _not_ like the Outcasts' crossbows, and he suspected that Toothless didn't like them either. But if they were to be good hosts and meet their guest's needs, then they would have to try something different, with an element of risk. "Okay, here's the plan. We'll go in at night. Toothless and I will fly back and forth across their village to draw their attention. We make a very elusive target because he's so hard to see in the dark, so I think we'll be safe. While we're distracting them, you will go in, kill your yak, eat it, and get out again, as quickly as you can. Does that work for you?"

_Yes, it does. I appreciate that you are willing to take a risk for me._

"I just have a weak spot for dragons, I guess. I'll see you after sunset."

As he walked away, he heard Astrid scream, "Hiccup! Come here, fast!"

"Ohh, here we go again," he sighed as he ran toward the training ring. But when he got there, he didn't find evidence of Snotlout's latest idea of revenge. What he found was Stormfly, contentedly examining two freshly-laid eggs on the training-ring floor. Astrid was getting as close as she dared.

"Look at them, Hiccup! Aren't they beautiful?" As they watched, the Nadder squatted and added a third egg to her impromptu nest.

"Wow," Hiccup said softly. "I guess being stuck here in Berk didn't hold her back."

"It didn't hold Meatlug back last year," Astrid commented. "Now we have to find a way to keep the eggs warm." But Stormfly seemed to have that problem under control. She traced several fiery rings around the eggs with her superheated breath, then stepped back, satisfied. The stone floor of the training arena was steaming; it would probably hold that kind of heat for at least an hour.

"How can she keep reheating the rocks from now until hatching time?" Hiccup wondered. "Will she go without sleep?"

"Maybe she'll curl up around them when she sleeps," Astrid suggested. "I'm more worried about how she'll eat. If she's a typical female egg-layer, she won't want to leave her eggs."

"I guess that, if she was on that island where all the dragons lay their eggs, her mate would provide food for her, and take her place at the nest now and then," Hiccup thought out loud. "Her mate isn't here. I think you'll have to take his place, Astrid."

_"I am not a dragon's mate!"_ she exploded, which startled Stormfly. In a slightly softer but still unmollified tone, she hissed, "Are you calling me a dragon lady?"

"No! Never!" Hiccup said defensively. "I was just saying that you could do what her mate would do if he was here, namely, provide food for your dragon."

"Oh. Sorry." She nodded thoughtfully. "I don't know if she'll trust me to guard her eggs, but I know I can do the 'food providing' part. I've got to find a wheelbarrow I can borrow, and then load it up with fish." Suiting action to words, she left at a run. Hiccup stayed for a few more minutes; he wasn't so jaded that the sight of newly-laid dragon eggs didn't arouse a sense of wonder in him. Stormfly didn't seem to mind, as long as he didn't get within touching distance of the eggs. When he did, she warned him off with a sharp snarl and raised tail spines.

"Okay, okay!" Hiccup exclaimed as he backed off. "No touchy. I get it." The dragon relaxed and lay down, gazing at her eggs.

Hiccup suddenly realized that he had company. Ruth had silently padded up behind him and was looking at the scene.

"Is this anything like how dragons lay eggs on Pern?" Hiccup asked him. He was beginning to like this white dragon.

_This is very unusual. On Pern, only the gold dragons lay eggs, and they lay very large clutches._

"Here, we have lots of species, and they all have males and females," Hiccup explained. "A Nadder like this one will usually lay two to four eggs. The Gronckles lay a dozen or more every year. That's because Gronckles are more short-lived, we think."

_What about your friend, Toothless? How many eggs will his mate lay?_

"Well..." Hiccup's face fell. "We don't know. He's the only one of his kind we've ever found."

_He seems happy._

"Still, he must get lonely sometimes, being all by himself."

_He and I have several things in common. We are both paired with humans who are destined to be rulers, and we are both one-of-a-kind dragons. I know I will never find another dragon who is like me. I am happy with Jaxom's companionship. I desire no others. I think your dragon friend feels the same way about you._

Hiccup stared into the blue faceted eyes. "Are you sure?"

_Toothless has told me nothing to make me think he is unhappy. Flying with you makes him happy._

"He wouldn't rather find a mate if he could?"

_He does not worry about things that probably will not happen. He has you, so he is happy._

Hiccup felt a sudden need to sit down; his knees were going wobbly. "Wow. Just... wow. I never thought about things that way." After a few minutes, he got up. He needed to go for a walk and sort some things out. No, he needed to go flying and sort some things out. Toothless was always willing to go flying, of course. Now Hiccup began to see that eternal willingness in a new light.

**o**

That night, the black dragon and the white dragon glided silently toward Outcast Island. "We're going to overfly the livestock pens, so you can see where your supper is," Hiccup explained to Ruth. "Then Toothless and I will fly back and forth over the town as a diversion, while you do your eating. Pick a fat one so you have to kill only one of them, and please make this as quick as you can."

_I will do my best. Some have praised me for selecting my kills quickly._

"Okay, Bud. Are you ready for this?"

_He knows what we are going to do, _Ruth said._ I told him. He is glad to do a favor for me, and he thinks the Outcasts will waste their time if they try to hit him at night, even if they could fill the sky with their spears and arrows._

"Wow! I wish he could tell me stuff like that. Ruth, having you around is going to change all the rules for how dragons and their riders get along. I'll be sorry when you have to leave. Okay, bear a little to the right. Those are the pens, straight ahead of us. Usually they aren't guarded, but after Toothless and I start stirring up trouble, who knows what will happen? Please be quick. Here we go!"

Toothless curved away to the left, climbed, then sparked a firebolt and dove. The telltale whistling sound of a diving Night Fury brought the Outcasts boiling out of their houses and huts by the dozen. Some cocked their crossbows and searched the night sky for something to shoot at; others just didn't want to be caught inside a building that was about to be destroyed by a Night Fury. Toothless shot his firebolt into an empty patch in the center of the town, where the flash of light would ruin many of the Outcasts' night vision, then banked and turned away sharply. Half a dozen crossbow bolts whipped through the space where he would have been if he hadn't turned.

"That was a little too close for my liking," Hiccup murmured in Toothless' ear. "Can we play it a little safer next time?" The Night Fury ignored him; cloaked in the safety of the night, he was enjoying the rare chance to have some fun with these Outcasts. He made a high-speed, low-altitude pass across the entire village. More crossbow bolts tore through the air a hundred feet behind him. On the ground, men tried to take up firing positions that would let them cover as much airspace as possible, even though they couldn't see what they were shooting at.

"Toothless, if they keep shooting at us, it's just a matter of time before they get lucky! Let's take a quick break and make them think we're gone. We can use the time to check on Ruth." Toothless reluctantly banked away from the village and overflew the livestock pens. Ruth had made his kill and was devouring it.

_Everything is going according to plan. Can you keep them busy for a few more minutes?_

"Did you hear that, Toothless? He needs just a few more minutes. Let's see what you've got!" For the next ten minutes, Toothless tormented the Outcasts without mercy. He shot firebolts from the shoreline across the length of the village, then turned away as the Outcasts shot at his fires; he made high-altitude passes and roared at the humans, knowing that they couldn't possibly hit him at that height; he even swooped down behind Savage and extended a paw, knocking the man sprawling in the dust, then pulled up sharply before anyone could retaliate. Not a single weapon came close to him.

_I am done. Meet me above the livestock pens and we will fly back to your home of Berk._

Toothless turned; apparently Ruth was communicating to him and to Hiccup at the same time. One determined Outcast tried to follow them on the ground. He couldn't see the Night Fury clearly in the darkness, but the white shape of Ruth was impossible to miss as he labored to take off. The man put his weapon to his shoulder, took quick aim, and fired. Hiccup screamed helplessly as he watched the shot go off.

The bolt whistled through the air, straight toward Ruth.

Then Ruth wasn't there.

The bolt tore through empty air and was lost in the darkness.

Three heartbeats later, Ruth reappeared, almost exactly where he had been before he vanished. Hiccup started breathing again as the white dragon joined up on Toothless' wing and they set a course for Berk. He had never seen _anything_ like that.

"Ruth, how did you _do_ that?"

_I heard your warning and I went between._

"You keep saying that. Between where and where?"

_Just between. It is how I dodge Thread, and it is good for dodging your enemies' weapons as well._

"Well, wherever _between_ is, it must be an awesome hiding place. Can you teach our dragons how to do that?"

_All dragons know how to fly between. It is not something that can be taught. We just know. If your dragons do not know, then I probably cannot teach them._

"It didn't hurt to ask, I guess. That would have been a really cool thing to know. Was your meal good?"

_It was filling, but it is still missing something._

"Huh. I can't imagine what that might be." The return flight was uneventful.

**o**

It was three days later that Jaxom finally regained his senses. His first coherent word was, "Ruth?"

_I am here. I am nearby. They are taking good care of me. It is good to hear your voice._

"Where is 'here?' Who is 'they?' Where are we?"

_I do not know where we are. In this place, no one knows anything about Pern. The dragons are very different, and so are the people's customs._

"You mean... we might have wound up on a different world?"

_That is possible. We are also in a different time._

"How different?"

_Very different. I think we are near the dawn of human civilization._

"That would put us on a different world, all right." Jaxom had to stop and think about that. Gothi entered, saw him sitting up in bed, and bustled back into her kitchen. She returned with a small pot of broth, which she offered to him. He drank it gratefully, expecting the taste of fellis juice mixed in with it, but tasting only the broth.

"Thank you," he said. "Where am I?"

She looked confused and made some marks on the floor with her staff. They looked like a young child's drawings to him.

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're trying to tell me," Jaxom said. She shrugged.

"Ruth, they don't even speak our language!"

_They understand when I think to them, and I can understand their thoughts to me in return. I will send for the one named Hiccup. He understands dragons and is kind. He will help you._

"The man's name is Hiccup? What kind of crazy place _is_ this?"

_There are many differences between here and our home. But they have an orderly society. We are on an island called Berk that is like a minor Seahold. The Holder is called 'Chief' and Hiccup is his son._

A moment later, the door swung open and a thin young man with an artificial leg burst in. "Zpv nvtu cf Kbypn," he said.

"I'm sorry, but I can't understand you," Jaxom said.

_He said, "You must be Jaxom."_

"Oh. Okay. Tell him, 'Yes, that's me. Are you Hiccup?' "

The young man nodded and said, "Zft, uibu jt nf."

_He says, "Yes, that is me."_

Within a few seconds, they worked out a rhythm to their conversation, relaying their thoughts through Ruth, who was happy to translate for them. But it took more than a few seconds for Jaxom to even begin to know what was going on around him. Hiccup helped him to stand up and take wobbling steps until he could get out of Gothi's hut. He found himself on a raised platform high above the ground. Two dragons were looking up at them – Ruth, his eyes whirling and blue, and a very different-looking dragon, all black, with some kind of man-made tail-fin apparatus. It looked frightening, yet its great green eyes were happy and focused on the young man next to him.

_This dragon is Toothless, who looks to Hiccup._

Jaxom tried to process that. "Toothless? On Pern, all the dragons' names end in 'th.' Can I just call him Tooth?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Stranger on a Strange Island** Chapter 4

"Are you all right, Ruth?" Jaxom was still reeling from the after-effects of jumping _between_ to an unimaginably distant destination, but his first concern was his dragon.

_I am well, but I am feeling somewhat weak. I think there is something in the food I normally eat that is not in the food here. But they are trying to feed me well._

Jaxom was eager to climb down the ladder to be reunited with his dragon, but his legs were still too wobbly to attempt it. Hiccup waved at a slow-moving, chunky-looking dragon and called it over. That dragon and his rider, who were called Meatlug and Fishlegs, allowed Jaxom to ride down to the ground with them. He stumbled over and clung to Ruth's neck.

_I have missed you, too._

Then Jaxom went cold. "The queen egg! Where is it? What happened to it?"

_Hiccup is keeping it warm in his own house. He says it is beginning to get hard, but from what he says, it is not hard enough to hatch yet._

"This Hiccup, whoever he is, is a good man." He turned to call up to Hiccup, who was beginning to descend the ladder. It was slow going; he had to be extra-careful with his metal leg.

"Thank you for helping to take care of Ruth while I was out of it."

"You're welcome," Hiccup said as he reached the ground. "We like dragons here, unlike a lot of places. Can you tell me how you wound up here on Berk?"

"I can't tell you for certain," Jaxom said hesitantly, "but I think it must be one of Ruth's special abilities. He's got a lot of those. We were jumping _between,_ we both got Threadscored, and I lost the picture of where we were going. With any other dragon, that would mean we'd get lost in _between_ forever and die. But somehow, Ruth brought us out of it. He probably had no control over where or when we landed... but the fact that we landed at all is entirely to his credit. I blacked out after the first ten seconds or so; I don't remember anything until I woke up just now."

"Okay, I understand about half of what you're telling me," Hiccup admitted. "But I do understand what it's like to ride an amazing dragon who surprises me now and then. In any case, you're welcome to stay here as long as you need to. We're a fairly peaceful place, and –"

At that moment, they heard a woman screaming, **_"Hiccup! He's done it again!"_** at the top of her lungs.

"So much for peaceful," he muttered.

A pretty young woman dashed up to them. "Snotlout has gone _way_ too far this time! I need you to get involved, I need your father involved, I need Snotlout's father and Gothi and the Law-Speaker for all the tribes involved, and we can't waste any time about it!" Her words were gibberish to Jaxom, but Ruth translated for him.

"What has he done?" Hiccup asked.

"Stormfly's eggs! They're gone!"

"Her eggs? Gone?" Those were some words that Hiccup never expected to hear.

_Is Stormfly a queen dragon?_

"She's not a queen," Hiccup explained, "but she's Astrid's dragon, and Astrid is kind of the queen bee on this island, so you're close."

_What is a queen bee?_

"I'll explain later. Astrid, are you sure the eggs were stolen?"

"Stormfly is in a panic, so I know she didn't move them," Astrid went on. "They were there last night; I saw them myself. I forgot to bring her any breakfast this morning, so she walked over to the fish feeding trays, and when she got back, she _screamed!_ I've never heard her make a noise like that. I ran over, and her eggs were gone! Snotlout must have taken them while she was eating!"

"Okay, this has officially gone too far," Hiccup snapped. "Jaxom, Ruth, I have to leave you two for a few minutes. I've got some Dragon Training Academy business that I've got to take care of. Astrid, come with me. We'll get to the bottom of this." She stormed off toward the Jorgenson home; Hiccup followed as fast as he could, given that his metal leg was paining him today.

When they got there, they could not find Snotlout. "My son went flying on that dragon of his," Spitelout said dismissively. "Oh, there he is now!" They saw Hookfang circling in for a lazy landing at the training ring. Astrid got far ahead of Hiccup as they both ran for the ring.

When they got there, they found Astrid pinning Snotlout to the ground and doing her absolute best to punch him in the face. He was dodging most of her blows, but he'd still have a few bruises. Hookfang looked on, seemingly amused, while Stormfly was still circling the ring in search of her eggs.

"Astrid! Let him go!" Hiccup shouted.

"He stole three eggs, so I owe him three good hits!" she retorted. "After that, I can _really_ start to settle the score with him!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Snotlout begged. "Hiccup, get her off of me!" He dodged another blow, and Astrid's fist hit the stone floor of the training ring.

"Ow!" she shouted as she shook out her hand. "You son of a half-troll, rat-eating munge-bucket! Now I owe you _four_ good hits!"

Hiccup folded his arms and tried to look fierce. "Astrid, hold off for a second." She froze, her arm cocked for another punch, but Hiccup grabbed her arm and held her back. She was easily strong enough to break away from him, but she didn't try. Hiccup went on, "Snotlout, where are Stormfly's eggs?"

"How should I know where the stupid dragon left her stupid eggs?" Snotlout exclaimed. "Was it my day to watch them?" Hiccup was still holding Astrid's right arm, so she swung her left hand and connected with his cheekbone. He cried out in pain.

"Snotlout, this is serious!" Hiccup snapped. "You _don't_ mess with a mommy dragon and her eggs!"

"That's right! I _don't_ mess with them!" Snotlout protested. "Everybody knows that! So why are you blaming me?"

"Because you and me have been trying to get even with each other ever since you crashed your dragon into mine," Astrid snarled. "That gives you a motive, you had the opportunity, and you have a history of stealing dragons' eggs."

"Oh, you mean those Stones of Good Fortune?" Snotlout asked.

"No, she means the Changewings' eggs," Hiccup corrected him.

"But that wasn't about revenge!" Snotlout said. "It was just a business deal that went bad."

"A business deal?!" Astrid burst out. "You nearly got our entire village destroyed because of those eggs!"

"And you also got a smackdown from Fishlegs," Hiccup went on. "Now you're getting another smackdown from Astrid, and if you don't tell us where those eggs are, I'm going to let her finish what she started."

"I'm telling you, I don't know!" Snotlout pleaded. "I didn't even know your dragon _had_ any eggs! And everybody knows you don't tick off a mommy dragon, even me! I might be Snotlout, but I'm not stupid."

"Then where are they?" Astrid growled.

"I keep telling you, I don't know! Maybe Mildew took them. He still hates dragons, and he loves to stir up trouble."

Astrid glanced at Hiccup. "Is that possible?"

"It's possible," Hiccup thought out loud, "but I doubt it. The dragons don't like Mildew; if he'd gone anywhere near the training ring, one of them would have sounded the alarm. Snotlout, did Hookfang spend the night in the ring, like he usually does?"

"I guess so," Snotlout said. "I didn't check up on him, or kiss him goodnight like Fishlegs does with Meatlug, or anything, but he usually sleeps here."

"And when you came to get him in the morning," Astrid went on, "you didn't even notice that Stormfly had laid three eggs?"

"She was all curled up in a circle," Snotlout said. "If she was curled around anything, I couldn't see it. I wasn't paying attention to her, anyway."

"I think he's telling the truth," Hiccup admitted. "Astrid, let him go."

She reluctantly got off him. As he stood up and brushed himself off, she whacked him in the cheek once more, which nearly knocked him down again. _"That's_ for giving my dragon a spicy fish!" she snarled.

"I thought the Nadder spine was because of that," Snotlout protested.

"No, the Nadder spine was for grounding her dragon at Snoggletog," Hiccup explained.

"No, the Nadder spine was because you deserve it for being Snotlout," Astrid corrected him. "You still deserve a lot more payback than that. And, until my dragon gets her eggs back, you'd better watch where you sit! Stormfly has shed lots of spines, and I saved them all for a day like this!"

"Astrid, if he really didn't take the eggs, then you can't punish him for that," Hiccup argued.

"I can't?" she smirked. "Just watch me!"

"No, wait, I just thought of something," Hiccup burst out. "Stormfly has a great sense of smell. If someone came here on foot and took the eggs, then she'd be tracking him down and she wouldn't quit until she'd found him. But she's just casting in circles. That means that, whoever took the eggs, they didn't leave a scent trail. So it couldn't have been Mildew who took them."

"But it could have been Snotlout," she said dangerously. "He rides a dragon, and dragons don't leave scent trails on the ground when they fly."

"Even if he grabbed them and then flew away with them on Hookfang, he'd still leave a scent trail when he came _into_ the ring," Hiccup said. "Stormfly would have picked up on that, she knows Snotlout's scent, and she would have attacked him the moment he entered the ring just now. She hasn't given him a single glance since he got here. So she knows he's not the egg thief."

Astrid could hardly argue against her own dragon's abilities. "But if he didn't take them, and Mildew didn't take them, then who took them? And how could they do it without leaving any scent marks on the ground?"

"Figuring that out is going to be your job, Astrid," Hiccup said. "They might have left a scent trail in the air, but with the breeze that's been blowing all day, you'll never be able to follow it. I have to get back to our guest and find out more about why he's here. If I were you, I'd start with the twins. You know they love to play pranks on people, and they have a sick sense of what's funny. Maybe they flew in here on Barf and Belch and took the eggs, knowing that you'd blame Snotlout for it."

"...and they're out there somewhere, laughing at both of us," Astrid finished. "I can hear them now, shouting, 'Loki!' and thinking they're so funny. Well, they won't be laughing when I'm done with them! Whose dragon can I borrow to go looking for them?"

"Astrid, you have to prove them guilty before you punish them!" Hiccup exclaimed.

She sighed impatiently. "Hiccup, you've got it backwards. First, I have to punish them. That makes them confess, so that's how I know they're guilty."

Hiccup rolled his eyes. "What if they're innocent, and they confess just to stop the beating?"

"Then they must be guilty of something else, so they still deserve it," Astrid said matter-of-factly.

"Either way," Hiccup went on, "you're not going to have much luck finding a dragon rider who will loan you his dragon. They're afraid that you'll get their dragon banged up and grounded, just like you did to your own dragon. You're going to have to do your detective work on foot."

"On foot?!" Astrid exploded. "I've been flying with Stormfly so long, I don't know if I remember how to solve problems on foot!" She sighed again. "Well, I might as well get started." She trudged out of the ring.

"Sheesh!" Snotlout muttered. "What got into her?"

"It's like she said. You don't mess with a mommy dragon, and you don't mess with a mommy dragon's rider, either."

"Hiccup, I swear to you, I didn't take those eggs! I wish I'd thought of it; it would have been a great way for me to get even with her for putting that Nadder spike in my seat cushion. But I don't want to get blamed for it if I didn't do it."

"I believe you," Hiccup said earnestly, "even if it's only because Stormfly hasn't fingered you as the thief. If I were you, I'd stay out of Astrid's way until this whole thing is resolved, just in case. In the meantime, we've got a mystery guest on a mystery dragon, and I've got to get them organized and headed for home before that big egg hatches and causes even bigger problems."

Snotlout considered that. "Do you think it's going to explode and take out half the island?"

"No, I think it's going to pair off with somebody from this island as soon as it hatches; Ruth says that's what always happens. If that happens, then the new dragon will have to stay here with her chosen human, and she won't be able to go back to Ruth and Jaxom's world, and Ruth says that will be very, very bad for them."

"So who cares about them?" Snotlout scoffed. "We don't even know who 'them' is! We've got our own problems, in case you hadn't noticed. If they can't keep track of their own dragons' eggs, that's their problem, not ours."

"Snotlout, whether we like it or not, we're in the middle of this," Hiccup corrected him. "You can see how upset Stormfly is over her missing eggs. Somewhere out there, in the place that Jaxom and Ruth call Pern, there's another mommy dragon who's just as upset about _her_ missing egg. Even if I never meet that mommy dragon, I still have to do whatever I can to make things right for her."

"Whatever," Snotlout shrugged. "I guess Hiccup's gotta be Hiccup." He set off for home, still limping from the Nadder-spine wound, carefully touching his face to find out where the bruises were. Hiccup waited for a minute, made sure that Stormfly wasn't doing anything rash, and left to find their mystery guest.

Jaxom was still next to Ruth. The white dragon was bringing his rider up to speed, telling him everything he'd learned about the strange place where they'd landed and the people who lived there. Jaxom was thinking his questions instead of saying them out loud; it saved time. He saw the young man Hiccup walking towards them. "Welcome back," he called.

"J cfu zpv uipvhiu J'e gushpuufo bmm bcpvu zpv," the young man said.

_He says he bets that you thought he forgot all about you,_ Ruth translated.

"You look worried, Hiccup," Jaxom said. "Is something wrong?" Ruth resumed translating for the two of them. It took several minutes for Hiccup to explain the cause of the feud between Astrid and Snotlout, the escalating cases of revenge they were taking against each other, and the missing dragon eggs.

"This Astrid sounds something like Lessa," Jaxom decided. "She isn't physically big, but she's vengeful and she has a temper. Lessa makes an excellent Weyrwoman, but I don't know anyone who wasn't terrified of meeting her for the first time."

"Yeah, that sounds like Astrid," Hiccup nodded. "What's a Weirdwoman?"

"Weyrwoman. A Weyrwoman is the woman who rides the senior gold dragon in a Weyr," Jaxom explained. "She basically oversees everything in the Weyr, except for the fighting wings when they're fighting or training, and she can exert some influence there as well, if she wants to."

"And a Weyr is kind of like what we call a dragon's nest, with people in it," Hiccup thought out loud. "Ruth told me that a couple of days ago. I can't imagine Astrid running a dragon's nest. This Lessa must be an extraordinary person."

"Yes, she is," Jaxom nodded. "She's threatening war against the Southern Weyr if her dragon doesn't get her queen egg back, and if her dragon leads the way, the others will follow. What will Astrid do if her dragon doesn't get her eggs back?"

"I can't even guess," Hiccup said. "She's liable to tear the village apart until she finds them. But I can't imagine how she'll ever find them. Whoever took them left no scent trail, which means they must have flown in, grabbed the eggs from the air, and flown out again. I don't know any of our riders who would even want to do such a thing. Except for Ruffnut and Tuffnut, of course, and I don't think they're bright enough to conceive a plan like that." He shook his head. "If only we had some kind of clues, then maybe we could solve this mystery. But there's nothing!"

Jaxom looked thoughtful. "What if you could see the crime taking place?"

"It's way too late for that, Jaxom. The crime is over and done with."

"Hiccup, are you forgetting how Ruth and I got here? We can travel _between_ times. Any dragon can do it, but Ruth is the best at it because he always knows exactly when he is. We could skip back to this morning and watch your training ring, and see who took the eggs. Then we'd come forward to your own time, because being in two times at once is very stressful, and you'd know exactly where the eggs are, and who to blame for taking them."

Hiccup's eyes suddenly showed hope. "Would you be willing to do that for us?"

Jaxom turned to Ruth. "What do you think? Shall we time it for a few minutes, for a good cause?"

_I think so. I am not sure._

"You're not sure? Ruth, you've never turned away from a challenge before! We've made tougher jumps than this. This one should be easy!"

_As I said, there is something missing from the food here. I am eating as much as always, but I am feeling somewhat weak and tired. I am afraid that, if we try to time it, we might join Moreta and Orlith._

"Oh." Jaxom had to think about that.

"What's the matter?" Hiccup asked him.

"Timing it isn't as easy as a simple jump _between,"_ Jaxom told him. "It's more stressful. It takes a lot out of both the dragon and his rider. Ruth isn't feeling well; he says there's a problem with his diet. He's afraid that, if he tries to time it, something might go very, very wrong, and that would be the end of us."

"Oh. Never mind, then," Hiccup decided. "I don't want you to risk your lives over a problem that isn't even yours."

"Really?" Jaxom said with a tinge of disbelief. "Ruth told me about how you risked your life with those Outcasts so he could get a decent meal. It's not your fault that it didn't give him what he needed. You've shown that you're willing to take risks for me and my dragon; can I do any less for you?"

Hiccup was not expecting that. "I... I can't ask that of you."

"That's strange. I didn't even hear you ask that of me," Jaxom said. "But I did hear me volunteer. Consider it a big repayment of a big debt."

"How dangerous is this going to be?" Hiccup quavered.

"I don't think it will have much risk at all," Jaxom answered. "Ruth is being careful with my life, like he always is. We've been up against higher odds, and we've always come through."

"In that case, I think I should ride with you," Hiccup decided. "Me seeing the actual egg-thief will be a lot more effective than you trying to describe him to me. Can Ruth carry us both?"

"Yes, you'll pose no problem to him," Jaxom said. "Sometimes I think he can carry as much as he thinks he can, but you're no heavyweight, so yes, you'll be welcome on this trip. When did you want to go?"

"Uhh, I don't know how this 'timing it' stuff works," Hiccup admitted. "Can we go right now, before I get nervous and change my mind?"

"Yes – let's go!" Jaxom exclaimed. At last, he felt like he was in control of the situation. He showed Hiccup how to sit on Ruth's neck, took his own seat, and up they went.

"Was that too sudden a takeoff for you?" he asked Hiccup over his shoulder.

"No, that was nothing! Toothless sometimes takes off full-speed, straight up. I'm accustomed to riding dragons; I'm good here." They flew over to the training ring, where Stormfly was still tracing nervous circles around the perimeter. "Hiccup, I'm going to let you give Ruth the mental picture of where and when we're going."

"Me?" Hiccup gasped. "Isn't there someone else here who's more qualified?"

"No, there isn't," Jaxom told him. "You know this place far better than I do, and you know the time frame we need to visit."

"Uhh... okay. Ruth, we want to go to this place, right here, but with the sun just coming up over the horizon, no dragons in here, and three dragon eggs, each a little smaller than my head, right up against that wall, to the right of the rightmost door."

_Got it._

Then they went _between_.

Jaxom couldn't actually hear Hiccup scream, but he could tell that the young man who was "accustomed to riding dragons" still had some things to learn about them.


	5. Chapter 5

**Stranger on a Strange Island **Chapter 5

They popped out of _between_ in exactly the same place where they had been a moment before. But now, it was early morning in Berk. Stormfly had left her nest to feed; they could see her walking up the path toward the fish feeding trays in the village. She had just flamed several circles onto the rocky floor around her precious eggs, so they would stay warm while she was away. She felt no nervousness in leaving them, because she had no enemies in Berk, as well as several powerful friends. One of those friends, Hiccup, was watching from the back of Ruth, the white dragon from somewhere very far away, along with Ruth's rider, Jaxom.

"Ehh," Hiccup said, confused. "Why do I feel so weak and weird all of a sudden?"

"That's how it feels when you exist in two places at the same time," Jaxom explained. "The closer you get to your other self, the worse it feels. The good news is, the feeling will pass as soon as we return to our own time."

"I can't wait for that to happen," Hiccup admitted, "but we have to stay until we catch the egg thief in the act."

"Do you think they'll try to steal the eggs with us hovering here?" Jaxom asked him.

"If we can scare them away so the eggs don't get stolen, that would be even better than catching the thief," Hiccup answered. "Can we change history like that?"

"I don't think so," Jaxom said after a moment's thought. "We're here now, which means we were here when the eggs were stolen, so our being here didn't change anything. It's confusing when you time it, I know; Lessa had a hard time figuring it out when she discovered the ability."

"I think I'd rather scare them away if I could," Hiccup decided. "I hate to think that anybody in Berk would steal a dragon's eggs."

Jaxom was about to respond when Hiccup nudged him. "Shh! I saw something move, over to the left." They looked to the shadows, but saw nothing. They waited.

Then, suddenly, three slender yellow dragons burst out of the shadows. Each was about five feel long from nose horn to tail-tip. They flew between the chains that covered the training ring; each one picked up an egg that was as big as its own head; and they staggered into the air and flew north along the coast.

"Dragons stole the dragon's eggs?" Jaxom exclaimed. "I never saw that coming!"

"I thought your Oldtimer dragons stole your queen egg," Hiccup pointed out.

"Those dragons were acting on their riders' orders," Jaxom said. "A dragon would never disturb a nest of eggs on his own. Those yellow dragons are obviously not following the orders of any human. What do you know about them?"

"Absolutely nothing, except that they take other dragons' eggs," Hiccup answered. "I've never seen that kind before. They look like long, skinny Terrible Terrors. But we need to follow them! We have to know where they're going so we can retrieve the eggs in our own time."

_I will not lose them. It is wrong to steal a dragon's eggs._

"You see, Hiccup?" Jaxom said with a small smile. "Every dragon knows that!"

"Except those three," Hiccup said bitterly.

For five, ten, fifteen minutes they followed the three yellow dragons at a distance. Those dragons were swift flyers; Ruth had to strain to keep up with them. Then, nearly at the northernmost point of Berk Island, the egg-thieves dipped into a cave along the shoreline and disappeared.

"I never saw that cave before," Hiccup said. "The weeds around the entrance hide it perfectly. But now we know where it is, and we can find it again easily. We'll come back with some more humans, torches, bags to carry the eggs, and weapons, just in case. For now, let's get back to our own time, so I can feel normal again." After a moment, they went _between_. It wasn't quite as jarring to Hiccup the second time. But it bothered Jaxom.

"Ruth, are you all right? That jump took a lot longer than three heartbeats."

_I am not well. I cannot make too many more jumps between times, or I will lose us both._

"Ruth says he's just about done timing it," Jaxom explained to Hiccup as they landed. "I don't dare push him any harder; I've got to save his strength for that one big jump that will get us home."

"I understand," Hiccup nodded. "I won't ask him to do it again. We shouldn't have to do it again; we know where the eggs are, and we can retrieve them any time we want to. But we're going to do it right now, before anything bad can happen to those eggs."

Hiccup had no difficulty rounding up volunteers for an egg-rescue mission. Astrid was in, of course. Fishlegs was curious about these new egg-robbing dragons, which he dubbed Velocirobbers, and he had a long-standing grudge against anyone who would steal dragons' eggs. Snotlout wanted to go because he wanted to completely clear his name of any suspicion of egg-stealing. The twins were willing to help rescue the stolen eggs, but they mostly wanted to see the cave where the eggs were hidden; they always wanted to know more about potential hiding places of all kinds.

"We'll go, too," Jaxom decided. "We're already part of this situation, so we might as well see it through to the end. Flying straight won't overtax Ruth."

They rode their dragons north, with Astrid behind Hiccup on Toothless, and Snotlout sitting at the base of Barf and Belch's neck. Fishlegs and the twins rode their own dragons. It didn't take them long to find the cave. Ruth stuck his head in... and swiftly pulled it back.

_Those little dragons are guarding a pile of eggs,_ he told Jaxom. _They are fierce and protective. They want me to leave their eggs alone. I am unwilling to fight them._ Jaxom passed this on to the others.

"A pile of eggs? That doesn't sound good," Fishlegs said. "Do these dragons steal eggs from all kinds of dragons?"

"Let's find out," Hiccup said. "Toothless? Scare those dragons away." The Night Fury stuck his head in the cave, and when the yellow dragons hissed at him, he roared in return. The three little dragons shot out of the cave mouth, giving Toothless as wide a berth as they could, and quickly vanished in the trees.

Hiccup stooped to enter the cave. It went only about fifteen feet in, so it was fairly well-lit. Its walls were bare stone, streaked with a white powdery substance. At the very end was a pile of about sixteen dragon eggs.

"Fishlegs, you were right," Hiccup called as he examined the eggs. "There are eggs from several different species here. Those dragons are quite the klepto-egg-iacs." He rested his hand on one... and went rigid. He put his other hand on it for a few seconds, then turned away with a deep sigh.

Astrid joined him. "I think those are Stormfly's eggs, right on top of the pile. Let's get them and return them to their mother! Hiccup, what's the matter?"

Hiccup sadly rested his hand on her shoulder. "There's no point in that, Astrid. All of these eggs are as cold as the air around us, and they've been that way for hours. They are never going to hatch."

"No!" Astrid burst out. She picked up the topmost egg and carefully cradled it in her arms. "If we warm it up, will it...?"

Hiccup shook his head. "It's too late for them. We're too late. I'm so sorry."

Astrid slowly sank to her knees. She didn't weep very often, but this was too much. "Those poor babies... poor Stormfly... how are we going to explain this to her?" Everyone was moved to some extent. They all loved baby dragons, and none of them had foreseen an outcome like this.

"I don't understand this," Hiccup said to no one. "I thought for sure that those yellow dragons would incubate the eggs that they took. I was wrong."

"I'm sorry," Jaxom said softly. "I wish there was something we could do."

"Hey, there is!" Fishlegs suddenly exclaimed. "Hiccup told me that your dragon can go back in time, right? Why not go back to right after those dragons stole the eggs, and take them back while they're still warm?"

"I wish we could do that," Jaxom said sadly, "but I don't dare. For one thing, the fact that the eggs are still here in the present means that we didn't get them in the past. For another thing, Ruth is fading; if he jumps _between_ times and makes a mistake, we'll never get out. I feel bad for your dragon and for the eggs, but I can't risk Ruth for them."

_I am willing to try. The dragon eggs are worth it._

"No, Ruth, I can't allow it! If we don't get that queen egg home, Pern will go to war! There's too much at stake, even if I didn't love you and couldn't bear the thought of you going _between_ and never coming back! I won't let you try it."

Hiccup nodded. "We've lost too many dragons today, Ruth. We can't lose another one."

Ruth stuck his head into the cave so he could see the eggs. _I could have ended up just like those eggs if you had not saved me, Jaxom. I know how those little dragons must have felt._ His eyes were spinning with oranges and yellows.

Then he paused and sniffed the air. _There is something else in here. Something that is good._

"I can't imagine anything good in this cave, Ruth." Jaxom was taken aback by his dragon's reaction.

_No, I am sure there is something good here._

They checked all the eggs in the pile; they were all cold and lifeless. There was nothing hidden at the bottom of the pile. Hiccup looked all around, trying to find something out of the ordinary.

"All I can see is this powdery stuff." He wiped his fingers across a deposit of the white powder, got a palmful, and rubbed some of it between his fingertips. "I think this is the stuff we use to scrub pots when they're really dirty. I don't know for sure; I haven't scrubbed many pots. Astrid's mother would know for sure." He held out his hand to Ruth, who sniffed it.

_Yes! This is good. This is the smell of what has been missing in my food_. He flicked out his tongue and lapped up the powder out of Hiccup's hand, and then recoiled. _But it tastes very, very bad._

Jaxom looked at the powder on the cave walls, then at his dragon. "Ruth, if you ate enough of this stuff, would it make you strong enough to time it again?"

_If I could eat enough of this, I will be strong enough to do anything. But I cannot bear to eat it._

"Okay, here's what we'll do," Hiccup decided. "We'll take a bunch of this powder back to Berk. Once we get there, we'll meet at one of the fish-feeding trays and hand the powder off to our expert." He pointed at Snotlout.

"Me? What am I an expert at?"

"Stuffing fish," Hiccup smiled.

"Huh?" Snotlout had no idea where Hiccup was going with this.

"Oh, I get it!" Astrid exclaimed. "You already stuffed a fish with one kind of powder – the hot pepper that you gave to Stormfly, and which I still haven't forgiven you for. If you stuff a fish with this powder instead, then Ruth can eat it whole and get his strength back without gagging on the stuff."

_That is a good reason for eating fish._

"And then he can fly back in time, and we can save Stormfly's eggs!" Fishlegs finished.

"And then Ruth will be strong enough to fly us home safely," Jaxom added.

Tuffnut was amazed. "You mean something good is going to come from a prank that Snotlout played?"

Ruff nodded. "We never got anything good out of _our_ pranks. Maybe Snotlout should be a follower of Loki, too."

"Forget it," Snotlout said firmly. "I am a follower of Snotlout and no one else! But, because this is the first time you've admitted that I'm an expert at something, I'll help in any way I can."

"Before we do that," Hiccup cut in, "there's one thing we have to be sure about. Astrid, are you sure that these are Stormfly's eggs, and not the eggs of some other Nadder?"

"How could she be sure of that?" Snotlout asked.

"Now that I think about it," she said slowly, "I don't think these are her eggs. A Nadder egg grows spikes after it has been in the air for a while. These eggs have spikes, but Stormfly's eggs hadn't grown their spikes yet. What does that mean?"

"It can mean only one thing," Jaxom said decisively. "If these aren't your dragon's eggs, then they're the eggs of some other dragon just like yours. That means that your dragon's eggs aren't here."

"We saw the yellow dragons bring those eggs here," Hiccup objected.

"We saw that in the past," Jaxom said, warming to his subject. "But they aren't here in the present. That means someone took them out of this cave between then and now. And, because Ruth is the only dragon here who can jump _between_ times, that means he took them."

"Someone else could have flown in here and taken them in the past few hours," Astrid said, with a dangerous glance toward Snotlout.

"Except I didn't do it!" he burst out. "None of us knew about this cave until Hiccup and What's-his-name found it."

"That's true," Hiccup nodded. "I think Jaxom is right, even though I don't pretend to understand it all. He and Ruth must have done their time-travel thing and taken the eggs."

Ruff tried to figure that out and quickly became lost. "But... he _didn't_ take them. Otherwise, they'd be back in Berk, right?"

"Time travel is complicated," Jaxom explained. "We already took them, but we haven't brought them back yet. Ruth needs to get his strength back now, so he can go back to the past, get the eggs, and bring them back to now, which will happen in the very near future."

Tuff closed his eyes. "This is making my head hurt. How do you know whether you did something that you already did, if you didn't do it yet?"

"We can be sure that Ruth took the eggs out of here," Jaxom answered. "But we _can't_ be sure that he successfully returned to our own time with them, because we haven't seen the results yet. That will depend on how well we can rebuild his strength with that powdery substance."

_I think I will succeed. I am getting good at recovering stolen dragon eggs._

They took the bags that they'd meant to fill with dragon eggs, and gathered as much of the white powder as they could. They flew straight home and landed around the nearest fish-feeding tray. It took a minute to find a fish that was small enough for Ruth to swallow whole. Then Snotlout went to work, carefully watched by the twins, who wanted to learn more about a prank that succeeded and then turned out to be useful. When the fish was as full of the powder as he could manage, he passed it to Jaxom, who tossed it to Ruth. The white dragon tried to swallow the fish whole, but had to chew it a few times in order to get it down.

_It still tastes bad, but I can endure it._

"How long will it take before we see a difference in him?" Astrid wondered.

"I don't know," Jaxom admitted. "We'll just watch and see."

_Can I please eat a yak, to kill the bad taste of the powder?_ Ruth asked plaintively.

"I don't know any yak owners on Berk who will willingly give up one of their animals," Hiccup observed.

"Maybe we could buy one with some of this powder," Fishlegs suggested. "We've got a lot of it."

"You know, that's not a bad idea," Astrid concluded. It took them about twenty minutes to find someone who would swap an older yak for a bag of the scrubbing powder. Ruth made short work of it, while everyone except Jaxom looked the other way.

_That yak was as thin and bony as a herdbeast from Nabol, but it helped. I am feeling slightly better already._

"Excellent!" Jaxom nodded. "We'll wait a few more hours, to make sure you're really strong enough to time it."

"Can't we hurry?" Astrid begged him. "Stormfly is in a panic! We can't waste any time!"

"When we're timing it, we have all the time in the world," Jaxom smiled. She thought about that for a few minutes, and finally figured it out. By that time, Hiccup had thought of another problem.

"When we go back in time, those yellow dragons are going to defend their egg pile, and Ruth doesn't want to fight them. We need to take Toothless back in time with us to scare them away again... and Toothless doesn't know how to travel in time."

"Yes, that's a problem," Jaxom nodded. "He's far too big to ride on Ruth's back."

Hiccup thought about that. "It's your dragon who does the time-jumping, right? You just go along for the ride?"

"Yes," Jaxom nodded.

"So maybe, if Toothless is touching Ruth, then he'll get carried along when Ruth time-jumps, just like Ruth carries you along," Hiccup concluded.

"Hmm... it's possible," Jaxom mused. "I'm not actually touching Ruth most of the time; I'm fully covered in wherhide riding gear and gloves. So Toothless wouldn't have to be in physical contact with Ruth, either, as long as he was connected to him somehow."

"Connected? You mean, like if a rope tied them together?"

"It might not have to be tied," Jaxom thought out loud. "If I held one end of the rope, and you rode Toothless and held the other end, that would be a connection."

"How can we find out if it will work, without overtaxing your dragon?" Hiccup wondered.

"_Between_ is _between,_ whether we time it or not," Jaxom realized. "We'll take a straight jump from one place to another, and see if we can bring your dragon along with us. I know Ruth is strong enough to do that without any risk. If it works, then we'll know that the time jump will work, too."

"We'll try it whenever you're ready," Hiccup said. "Just let me find some rope." Berk had plenty of rope; their fishing fleet used thousands of feet of it. Hiccup found a coil of medium-strength rope that had been set aside because it was beginning to fray in several places and wasn't safe to use as a ship's rigging. It would serve their purpose just fine, though. They took off, with Jaxom carrying the rope.

"I'm used to throwing things in midair," he explained. "My weyrling training included tossing sacks of firestone to other dragons. I can toss this rope to you easily."

"Yeah... about that firestone stuff," Hiccup called back. "We found the missing ingredient in your dragon's diet. Maybe, if we looked long enough, we could find some of this firestone, and your dragon could breathe fire again."

"Maybe," Jaxom nodded, "but I hope to be back home very soon. I don't want to stay here long enough to find firestone, or to do anything else except build up Ruth's strength so he can make the jump. The main reason I'm helping with this egg-quest of yours is that we need to keep busy while we're waiting for that powder to do whatever it does inside Ruth." He lobbed the coil of rope, remembering to hold onto one end. Hiccup caught the other end.

"We're ready," Hiccup said. "Where are we going?"

"You pick the place," Jaxom answered. "Ruth is listening to your mind almost as much as he listens to mine. Just form a really clear mental picture of where you want us to go, and hold that picture until we're there."

For a few moments, Hiccup's mind went blank. Where should they go? He settled on the cove, and thought purposefully about what it looked like from the air. He braced himself, but the shock of _between_ still unnerved him.

Then they were over the cove. He was still holding the rope, and Jaxom and Ruth were still about forty feet in front of him. Toothless moaned, blinked hard, and shook his head vigorously, slapping Hiccup's head with left and right ear-flaps in quick succession.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! I don't think Toothless liked going _between_ any more than I did," Hiccup complained.

"But the good news is, the jump worked!" Jaxom called back. "The two of you came right along with us. Now we know that, when Ruth is strong enough, he can time it and take the two of you with him. Your Stormfly is going to get her eggs back!"

"Yeah, that's definitely good news," Hiccup nodded. "And it's not so bad when we don't change times when we jump. Can we land for a few minutes, though? I think Toothless really got shook up by that jump _between."_ Both dragons settled to the ground.

"This is a beautiful place," Jaxom observed.

"I found it by accident," Hiccup said. "Well, actually, Toothless found it by accident, and I found him here."

"How did that work?" Jaxom asked. Hiccup told him the short version of how he had shot down a Night Fury during the war, then befriended him, made him a new tail, and learned to fly with him.

"Wow," Jaxom said quietly. "And I thought _my_ story was complicated!"

"I admit it, I'm curious," Hiccup nodded. "So, what's your story?" Jaxom told him the short version of how he was born to a deceased, despised Lord Holder, grew up under the guidance of a man who had lost his dragon, and Impressed Ruth by accident.

Hiccup had to smile. "So you're destined to rule a small Hold, and you fly a one-of-a-kind white dragon. I'm destined to rule a small tribe, and I fly a one-of-a-kind black dragon. No wonder we work together so well!"

"When I landed here," Jaxom smiled back, "I thought I was among a bunch of primitives and I had nothing in common with them. I'm glad I was wrong."

They shook hands, and spent a few more minutes just enjoying the peace and silence of the cove. Their dragons enjoyed the break as well.

**o**

_A/N  
In case you didn't figure out what is happening in this story: it is canon that the plant life on Pern is heavy on boron, compared to Earth plants. The livestock brought from Earth to Pern by the first settlers had to be genetically modified to process the boron. It stands to reason that a creature that is native to Pern, like a dragon, would need that boron as part of its diet, and Earth food would not provide enough boron to meet that need. The most common source of boron on Earth is borax, which is the white powder that Ruth found in the cave. Borax is probably not found in Scandinavia in meaningful quantities, but I stretched probability and provided a small deposit of it on Berk, for the sake of the story. I hope you don't mind._


	6. Chapter 6

**Stranger on a Strange Island** Chapter 6

"Okay, how are we going to do this?"

Hiccup was trying to organize his friends to go on a dragon-egg rescue mission. All they had to do was travel back in time with a visitor from a strange, unknown place, scare away some dragons of a brand-new, unknown species, reclaim Stormfly's stolen eggs, and return them to the present before the eggs became too cold to be viable. What could possibly go wrong?

"I don't think we all need to go," Jaxom suggested. "Some of you don't react well to going _between,_ so the fewer people who do it, the better off the rest of you will be. The only ones we really need are me, Hiccup, and probably Astrid."

"And our dragons," Hiccup added.

"Of course," Jaxom nodded.

"Why can't I go?" Snotlout demanded.

"Because, when you go _between_ for the first time, there's a fifty-fifty chance that you're going to lose control of your bodily functions," Hiccup told him. "I'm pretty sure you don't want that."

"Lose control of my what?" Snotlout asked, puzzled. Hiccup leaned over and whispered in his ear. Snotlout looked shocked. "Yuck! And there's a fifty-fifty chance of that? Those are terrible odds. I'm not going."

"Okay," Hiccup nodded. "Astrid, do you have the bag to carry the eggs?"

"Yes," she nodded, "and it's half-full of wool to keep them warm until we can get them home."

"Great. Jaxom, do you have the rope for our _between_ jump?"

Jaxom patted Ruth's flank. The rope was hanging from part of the dragon's saddle. Toothless saw the coil of rope, his eyes widened, and he backed off with a whimper. He remembered his first flight _between,_ and he apparently did not want a second flight. Ruth and Hiccup together managed to settle him down enough for Hiccup and Astrid to climb on board. Ruth and Toothless took off together and gained some height.

"Hiccup, give Ruth the image," Jaxom called. He tossed the coil of rope to Hiccup.

"All righty, then. We saw the yellow dragons' cave earlier today. We're going there, but the sun will be just coming up over the horizon, with really long shadows." He held that thought... and then they flashed _between_. It didn't take long, but at the same time, it took far too long. He knew that Toothless felt the same way, and he was sure that Astrid was having a similar reaction.

Then they were there. Hiccup looked into the cave; the yellow dragons were not there, and neither were Stormfly's eggs. "They haven't gotten back from the training ring yet," he announced. "They're still headed this way. We need to hide until they get here, so we don't scare them away and keep them from adding the new eggs to their pile."

"We already know that we didn't do that," Jaxom corrected him. "If we'd scared them off, here in the past, then they would not have been there when we looked for them in the present."

Hiccup nodded, not fully convinced. "Still, we have to take action so we don't scare them off now. That way, we can be sure we didn't scare them off then, which hasn't happened yet."

"Ugh!" Astrid complained. "This timing-it stuff is making my head hurt. Can we just stick to dragon eggs?"

"Actually, it's kind of neat, thinking in new ways like this," Hiccup replied. "If Stormfly's eggs weren't at risk, I'd even say it was fun."

The two dragons and three humans found a place in the woods where they could see the approach route to the yellow dragons' cave. They had to wait about seven minutes; then the egg-stealers appeared, straining under their burdens. The watching humans gave them another two minutes to put down the eggs; then they walked over. The two dragons approached the entrance to the cave, and Toothless gave the yellow ones a menacing snarl. The little dragons didn't fly away this time, but took up defensive positions in front of the pile of dragon eggs.

_They are angry and afraid,_ Ruth told Jaxom and Hiccup. _They do not want to lose these eggs._

"Why not?" Jaxom demanded. "These eggs don't belong to them!"

_One moment. These dragons have small minds and they are thinking very fast, not in concepts, but in pictures._

"Are they making excuses for stealing our eggs?" Hiccup demanded.

"Whatever they're saying, it doesn't matter!" Astrid said heatedly. "Make them give our eggs back!"

_They are saying... they are saying that there is a problem with their species. Nearly all their eggs hatch male, so they don't have enough females to lay eggs. Their kind is dying out. They take other dragons' eggs because they hope that, by incubating them themselves, it will turn them into eggs of their own kind. But they do not generate enough heat for such large eggs, and the eggs never hatch._

"That could never work anyway!" Hiccup blurted out. "You can't change a Nadder egg into a Velocirobber egg just by changing who incubates it!"

_They do not understand this. As I said, they have small minds. They are desperate to keep their species alive until one of them finds the Great Egg._

"The what?" Jaxom and Hiccup chorused.

_They have a legend that involves seeing the Great Egg, the largest dragon egg that ever was. It represents fertility to them. Once some of them see that egg and touch it, that will be the sign that they will begin to hatch more females, and their kind will no longer be in danger. They have visited the nests of the largest dragons in existence, including the Red Death while it was still alive, but they have not found the Great Egg._

Hiccup considered that for a few seconds. A sly smile crept across his face. "Ask them if they'll still steal other dragons' eggs after they see the Great Egg."

"Why would that matter?" Astrid wondered. "You're not taking this legend of theirs seriously, are you?"

"Yes," Hiccup said firmly. "This isn't a joking matter, and I think we can make everybody happy if we handle this situation right."

Now Jaxom smiled. "I think I see what Hiccup is thinking. Clever, very clever... _if_ we can keep them from harming the, umm, Great Egg. I will _not_ take any chances with that!"

_They say that they will not need other dragons' eggs after they see the Great Egg. They believe that their species will recover on its own after that._

"Good," Hiccup nodded. "Now tell them that, if we can reclaim our own dragon's eggs, then we will take them to see the Great Egg."

_They want to know how we can prove the truth of what we are saying._

"Okay, make them this offer," Hiccup said, thinking fast. "Tell them to bring Stormfly's eggs with them. Tell them to hold onto them tightly so they stay warm. We'll take them to the Great Egg, and they can see it for themselves. If it's true, then they'll have what they want the most, and we'll reclaim our own eggs. If it isn't true, they'll still have Stormfly's eggs."

The yellow dragons had a quick discussion with each other. Astrid edged over toward Hiccup. "Don't play games with my dragon's eggs, Hiccup," she warned him in a low, deadly tone.

"Everybody is telling me not to take chances with their dragon eggs!" Hiccup burst out. "Well, do you know what? If we don't take some kind of a chance, we're going to lose most of those eggs. Astrid, I'm not playing a game. This is about the survival of a whole species of dragons, and also your own dragon's well-being and the lives of three unhatched dragons. I'm pretty sure about this."

"Pretty sure, Hiccup? If I was Stormfly, I'd say that wasn't good enough."

Jaxom interrupted them. "From what I've seen, Hiccup really understands dragons. I've been willing to trust him, and I've got a lot more to lose. He hasn't disappointed me. I don't think he'll disappoint you or your dragon, either." Astrid paused, then slowly nodded.

Then each of the small yellow dragons picked up an egg off the top of the pile and flew with it onto Ruth's back.

"The little dragons always love and trust Ruth," Jaxom noted. "Okay! Everybody, back on their dragons. Hiccup, be ready to grab the rope. We want to move fast, before those eggs get any colder." They suited action to words and, after a fast trip _between,_ they were back in Berk in the afternoon.

_The yellow dragons did not like going between,_ Ruth told them.

"Tell them to deal with it, and to follow me," Hiccup ordered, and set his best pace to his father's house. The dragons followed him in the air, unwilling to part with their stolen treasures. He opened the door and gestured inside. One of the dragons peered in, and let out a surprised whistling sound.

All three yellow dragons landed, laid down their Nadder eggs, and filed inside. Their attention was completely captured by Ramoth's queen egg that stood near the fire pit. They stared at it, walked in circles around it, flew over it, and finally rubbed their heads against it, while Jaxom watched nervously. They twittered and cheeped at each other with growing enthusiasm. For a few seconds, they stood in a row, bobbing their heads up and down toward the egg. Jaxom didn't know what to make of this; he had never seen an act of worship before. Hiccup had seen some devotees of gods like Freyja make similar gestures towards a pagan altar, but it was very uncommon. While the Velocirobbers were engrossed in their adoration of the queen egg, Astrid quietly gathered up Stormfly's eggs in her wool-filled bag and tiptoed away toward the training ring.

At last, the little dragons seemed to be satisfied. They backed away from the "Great Egg" until they were outside the house again. Then they chirped something at Ruth, bounded into the air, and headed north without a backward glance.

_They said, "Thank you."_

"I kind of guessed that," Hiccup nodded. "For their sake, I hope their legend is true. Let's go see how Astrid and Stormfly are doing."

When they got to the ring, they weren't sure what to make of what they saw. The eggs were back where they had started, against the wall near one of the doors. Astrid was lying flat on her back, trying to get up, but she couldn't because Stormfly's muzzle was pinning her down. The dragon was wriggling her head back and forth and letting out high-pitched crooning noises.

"Stormfly... please! I can't breathe!" Astrid was gasping.

Jaxom was nonplused. "The dragon isn't turning on her rider, is she?"

"No, I think she's trying to say the most heartfelt 'thank you' she ever offered anyone," Hiccup suggested. "When your voice is limited and you don't have hands, you have to express yourself the best way you can."

"I guess that means the eggs will still hatch," Jaxom said.

"If Stormfly had any reason to be unhappy, I'm sure we'd be seeing it," Hiccup nodded. "I think everything on Berk is good now." He turned to Jaxom. "Now it's your turn."

"Hiccup, I hope I'm not imposing, but could we spend one more night and day here before we try to jump home again? I want to be sure Ruth is up to it."

"Not a problem," Hiccup said. "He just ate, so we shouldn't have to feed him again. But we'll offer him one more stuffed fish tonight, just to be sure."

Jaxom grasped Hiccup's right hand with both of his own. "I can't tell you how thankful I am for everything you've done for me. I showed up on your doorstep, a strange man with a hungry dragon, and you practically stood on your head to give me and Ruth what we needed. Once we finish this voyage, all Pern will be in your debt, even though they'll never know it."

"The thankfulness is mine," Hiccup replied. "If it wasn't for you and Ruth, Astrid's dragon would be desolate, and those Velocirobbers probably would have stolen more of our dragon eggs in the future. You helped us solve a problem that we never could have fixed on our own. But now I've got a question. When you showed up on our doorstep, you were kind of a mess. Is that going to happen again when you go back the way you came?"

"It probably will," Jaxom agreed. "We'll jump into a slightly different time and place, recover ourselves, and then take the queen egg back where it belongs. That's the great thing about timing it – we aren't under any pressure to get the job done by a certain time."

There was a huge Snoggletog party in the Mead Hall that night. Jaxom avoided it because he didn't speak the language of the local people, and he wasn't sure they would be tolerant of someone who was obviously an outsider, especially once the mead and the ale began flowing. Hiccup, Astrid, and Fishlegs took turns bringing him food and snacks from the party; Fishlegs' real motive was to spend a few more minutes talking to Ruth before the white dragon left Berk forever.

The next morning, it was time for Jaxom and his dragon to go. Ruth said he was feeling fine and ready for the enormous jump across thousands of years and countless miles. The teens each said goodbye to Jaxom in their own way.

Ruffnut: "I hope you make it home okay. If you ever want to visit us again and learn how to follow Loki, I'd be glad to teach you everything I know."

Tuffnut: "That's a neat dragon you've got there. Are you sure you can't teach my dragon how to time it? I could use that stuff when I'm pranking people."

Snotlout: "Thanks to you and your dragon, I'm actually going to get away with that spicy-fish prank I played on Astrid. You're an okay guy, for a chief."

Fishlegs: "You've made a lifelong dream come true! I actually talked to a dragon and got an answer! I got to learn some things about those Velocirobber dragons, too. I'll never forget Ruth. Or you."

Astrid: "I can't tell you what it meant to my dragon when she got her eggs back. You made that happen. Whatever accident brought you here, I'm glad for it, and I'm sorry to see you go."

Hiccup: "You two really made a difference during the short time you were here. I hope you can keep on making a difference in the place where you belong. I know I'll never see you again, and that stinks. But I'm glad I got the chance to call you a friend, even for a short time. Fly safely, Jaxom. Fly safely, Ruth."

Jaxom made sure that the precious queen egg was safe in its padded bag, and strapped himself into his saddle. Ruth gathered himself and bounded into the air. A moment later, he found himself escorted by the teens on their dragons, including Stormfly and Hookfang, whose wings had healed enough that they could fly again. For a few minutes, they circled Berk together. Then Jaxom closed his eyes and concentrated. A few seconds later, he and Ruth vanished. The other dragons took one more silent lap around the village, then settled reluctantly to the ground. The chief was waiting for them there.

"I'm glad that everything ended well," Stoick told them. "And I'm very glad that we won't be losing any more of our yaks to that bottomless pit of a white dragon. Is it true that the young man is really a chief?"

"He's going to be something like that, Dad," Hiccup said.

"Then you did well, giving him what he needed," the chief nodded. "Future chiefs should always get along; it helps to avoid future misunderstandings. But now, it's time for my little surprise. Our last dragon race was something of a disappointment, because two of the racers collided and never got to finish the race. So, tomorrow afternoon, we'll have another round of racing!"

"Which I will win, of course," Astrid smirked.

"Over my dead body!" Snotlout protested.

"Is that how you want it?" she growled. "Because if you take my dragon out again, I'll give you your wish!"

"You wish you could!" Snotlout shot back. "The Jorgensons' star is rising, and you're going down!"

"No, _you're_ going down! And this time, you're going down without me!"

Hiccup sneaked away from the argument as it heated up. Toothless was always ready to go flying, of course, so he locked his metal foot into the stirrup and they left the ground behind. Even at a quarter of a mile up, he could still faintly hear Astrid and Snotlout threatening each other.

"Bud," he said softly, "I could almost wish you knew how to fly _between_. It's scary, but I think it's the only way to get away from this craziness."

Toothless shook his head and ear-slapped Hiccup. He would follow Hiccup almost anywhere, but not _between_.

**o**

Jaxom and Ruth successfully returned to Pern without further incident. They landed in an uninhabited portion of the Southern continent, where Jaxom could regain his wits without fear of Threadfall (Ruth directed the fire lizards to protect them) and could pick food right off the trees until he and his dragon were ready for the last leg of their journey through space and time. They returned Ramoth's egg to Benden's hatching ground just a few days before it was due to hatch, and a Pernese civil war was averted.

A few days later, Brand visited the former stable that now served as Jaxom's office and Ruth's weyr. He noticed something odd. As the future Lord Holder of Ruatha, Jaxom never had to use anything old or worn-out. If he needed anything, he could get brand-new clothes, flying gear, and anything else he needed, simply by telling one of his servants that he needed it. But now, hung on the wall over his writing desk, there was an old, frayed, primitive-looking coil of rope. He asked Jaxom about it.

"That is a memento of an amazing journey I took, a long, long time ago. It reminds me of some special friends whom I'll never see again."

Brand was puzzled. "I don't remember you taking any journeys, Jaxom. When did this happen? Where did you go?"

"Maybe I'll tell you all about it someday," Jaxom said with a mysterious smile. "When I've got the time."

_The End_


End file.
